Philosophy - Christianity - Occidental Identity

Winfried Schröder ()

ERASMUS PHILOSOPHY LECTURE 2014

The third edition of the yearly Erasmus Philosophy Lecture will be held by prof. Winfried Schröder on 18 March 2014 at Erasmus University Rotterdam.

Philosophy - Christianity - Occidental Identity

The role of religion in Western culture has always been a controversial matter. From a genealogical perspective one fundamental historical fact cannot be denied: the occidental identity, and more in particular the values on which modern Western societies are based, was shaped not only by secular philosophical rationality and the legacy of the Enlightenment, but also by its Christian heritage. Some contemporary philosophers, however, maintain that in a normative perspective too, the Christian legacy remains one of its constitutive elements. In various ways even non-Christian philosophers recommend the Christian morality, anthropology and world view as a substantial resource for normative reasoning today. According to Jürgen Habermas “up to this very day there is no alternative to a continual re-appropriation” of the Christian legacy. We “must draw sustenance now, as in the past, from this substance.”

But how are we to determine the normative content of Christianity? And are the two traditions whose synthesis is supposed to constitute the occidental identity – Christianity and Enlightened rationality – compatible with each other? To address these questions an inspection of the long history of interchange between philosophy and Christianity might be helpful. In particular an analysis of the clashes between them during the Enlightenment and later modernity – as well as in Antiquity more than a thousand years earlier – promises to shed some light on the alleged synthesis of these two legacies.

Please go to www.eur.nl/fw/erasmuslecture for further information on the speaker, location and registration.

Date: Tueday 18 March 2014

Time: 5:00 - 7:00 pm

Location: Erasmus Pavilion, Erasmus University Rotterdam

Registration: www.eur.nl/fw/erasmuslecture